textproduct: Quad Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Incoming cold front/push later tonight to be accompanied by veering and increasing sfc winds to brisk levels with robust cold advection late tonight into Wednesday. Gusts of 30-40 MPH possible.

- A clipper system still looks on track to move through the Midwest late Thursday afternoon through Friday. There is still some uncertainty regarding the track and moisture this system will have to utilize for snow production, but at least some light/minor accumulations appear possible.For now will advertise 30 to 50 percent probability of seeing at least an inch of snow somewhere in the DVN CWA by Friday.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 158 PM CST Tue Jan 13 2026

Short wave energy seen on W/V imagery acrs the northeastern plains will look to take a deep dig to the south to acrs the STL area by Friday morning in upper long wave troff deepening process. Resultant near meridional fetch down the upper to mid MS RVR Valley will allow for a cold dump of air out of Canada or even a west Hudson Bay source region thru Wed. Current WAA AC/mid deck of clouds currently stretching from acrs the northwestern plains through the eastern OH RVR Valley, should get shunted to the south and southeast with steering flow amplification tonight. But they will get replaced by lower CAA stratocu currently acrs MN and WI later tonight into Wed morning. FCST soundings suggest limited/shallow moisture profiles, but would still think their will be some sctrd flurries or even light snow showers later tonight and early Wed morning under the vort max passage. But more of a weather story will be tightening cyclonic LLVL flow and pressure gradients in a CAA pattern driving gusty northwest winds tonight into the first half of Wed before they start to relax some late in the day. Top of the mixed layer wind momentum transfer method on the soundings suggest gusts of 30 to near 40 MPH possible overnight into Wed morning. These type of wind gusts mixed with a snow shower could produce localized visibility reductions for the Wed morning drive.

As for temps, 12 hour low values tonight occurring at 12z Wed look to be well down in the 20s, with Wed highs nearly steady or even falling as the day progresses. Will go with 12 HR highs for Wed just a few degrees above the 12z values. Wed morning wind chills in the single digits above zero north of I-80. Wed night lows will be cold in the low to mid teens under clearing skies and decreasing winds

LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/

Issued at 158 PM CST Tue Jan 13 2026

Meridional, steep northerly/northwest flow is forecast to prevail into early next week when passing shortwaves will eventually produce the flow aloft to flatten across the CONUS to more of a zonal flow.

After a cold start, high temperatures on Thursday will be in the upper 20s to lower 30s with help from backing flow ahead of the next clipper system. Southwest winds will pick up an be gusty to 25 MPH on Thursday.

This clipper/digging shortwave will overspread the the area Thursday night through Friday night. This will bring another round of light snow to the area on the warm air advection(WAA) side of the wave. This clipper will also bring another round of gusty northwest winds to the area with gusts up to 30 mph. There could be some light snow accumulations Thu night into Friday morning, but continued variance among the ensembles and deterministics of amounts and moisture to utilize for snow production make for low confidence. More models show at least 1-2 inches acrs the northeast half of the dVN CWA by Friday morning, and less to the west. This in contrast to the ECMWF ensembles of only a half inch or so.

Models begin to disagree after Saturday with northwest flow continuing but differing solutions on the timing of shortwaves with the ECWMF and CMC showing a shortwave moving across the area on Sunday while the GFS holds this off until Monday. The current forecast is dry Sunday through Monday night. NBM FCST high temperatures in the 20s and teens for the weekend may even be a bit optimistic, even after trending down from previous runs.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 515 PM CST Tue Jan 13 2026

A cold front moving through tonight will lead to gusty NW winds between 25 - 35 kts into Wednesday. In addition to the strong winds, periods of MVFR ceilings are expected which could be accompanied by occasional flurries. An improvement to VFR is anticipated for Wednesday PM.

DVN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IA...None. IL...None. MO...None.